I.
In the face of reality’s complexity, especially the complexity represented by the existence of other people, there are certain essential questions which I believe that all humans confront (if they live long enough and are mentally lucid) whether they realize it or not. Taken together, the search for answers to these questions forms what I call the existential dilemma of the human being. These are the questions which must be answered if a human wants to make sense of the world and survive within it. This dilemma may not be consciously articulated, but I am convinced that it is at least felt, and is perhaps the source of the vague unease many humans feel at odd times in their lives. I am convinced that many humans embrace religious convictions because religion seems to end this search. Other humans seek resolution of these issues from sources outside of religion, chiefly philosophy. And many people come to believe that there are no definitive answers to any of these questions. (That lack of answers carries its own consequences, as we will see.)
In my opinion, the major
existential questions humans want answers to are the following::
1. What
am I?
2. Who
am I?
3. What
is the world and how did it come to be?
4. Why do humans exist?
5. What
is my place in the world?
6 How
should I live my life?
7. Can
I know myself?
8. Can
I know others?
9. Can
others know me?
10. Who can I trust, and to what degree?
11. How can I protect myself and my loved ones from the world?
12. Is there a larger purpose to life than mere survival, and if
so, what is it?
13. What is right and what is wrong?
14. What is true and what is false?
15. Why
is there suffering?
16. Why do evil and injustice exist?
17. Is life worth living?
18. Is there such a thing as meaning, and if so, is it
discoverable?
19. What happens when people die?
Naturally, most people don’t
consciously dwell on such matters very often, if at all. For the vast majority
of us the demands of everyday life are such that there is very little mental or
physical energy left for such “idle speculation”. And yet, I suspect that these
are the questions, even if unspoken or not contemplated, around which humans
build their lives and about which they are most concerned. In my view, whether they know it or not, I
believe most humans both want and need answers to these questions, ones that
will help them reject a conclusion that for most people is utterly intolerable,
namely, that existence is absurd and
nothing ultimately means anything—including our own lives.
II.
Upon birth, we must suppose that
an infant faces a physical reality which is totally incomprehensible to him or
her. Instinctive reactions, born of evolution’s long history, govern a baby’s
behavior. As the neurons of the brain interweave themselves and make
connections (while pruning back others), the earliest self-awareness an
infant/toddler has begins to emerge. An “I” is beginning to take shape, the
sense of being an object differentiated from other objects, a feeling of being
connected by the senses to the outside world. So the initial existential
question we face is, in my view, What am
I? Children tend to quickly learn some variation of an answer to this
question: I am a baby, I am baby boy or baby girl, I am something which belongs
to mommy or daddy, I am someone who has needs. Young children just learning to
speak are often excited to see other very young children, and will often
exclaim, “Baby!”, upon seeing them. This recognition of others is a crucial
part of personality formation and
categorization. There are big people; there are little people. The earliest
memories, usually from around the age of 3, indicate (in my view) a stage in
the development of the self, and a new step toward defining the “What am I”
question. All throughout life, as roles
are acquired and membership in various groups is understood, and assimilated
into a person’s consciousness, the answers to What am I grow increasingly elaborate and complex. All sorts of
categories now seem applicable: member of a family, member of a neighborhood,
member of a school, member of a town, member of a nation, and so on. The
answers to the question “What am I” form crucial aspects of an individual’s identity.
By identity, I mean the association of the “I”, the self, with various
definitions which seem to be congruent with experience. “What am I” continues
to be asked (either consciously or unconsciously) all through life. Answers can
include, “a child”, “a teenager”, “an adult”, “an employee”, “an old person”,
and, if there is sufficient lucidity near the end of one’s life, “a dying
person”. In a sense, What am I is the ultimate, primal, permanent question of
life, one that follows us from birth all the way to the moment of death.
Who am I? is a variation on What
am I?. The various definitions associated with the self, combined with an
individual’s unique experiences and genetic predispositions, form a
biographical narrative in a human brain (assuming the person in question is of
adequate intelligence). This narrative is strengthened by the possession of a
name, a ready identifier which becomes indelibly linked to us. We say, in various ways, “I am [name]. I have
a story that is mine alone. I have my own set of characteristics and ways of
seeing the world. No one else is me. I live inside of myself, and I know my
story better than anyone. Things have happened to me. I have done things. I
have thought and felt things. I will be me for the rest of my life.” An
individual human might change the definition of Who am I several times over a
lifetime. And some people never quite get a handle on it. The answers to the
question, Who am I can be vague, somewhat shapeless, indefinite, and malleable,
as a human’s life unfolds and follows often unexpected paths. Answers to this
fundamental existential question can change under the pressures of new
circumstances, dramatic personal events (especially crises), and new,
age-related perspectives.
As a person more and more
coherently defines himself or herself as a kind of living being existing in a
definite kind of world, questions tend to arise about the nature of that world
and how humans came to be in it. The overwhelming majority of humans are taught
answers to these questions by the adults in their culture, adults who have
absorbed cultural traditions that are centuries or even millennia old. The
dominant mythology of a given society is usually learned at a young age, and it
can be remarkably difficult to dislodge from a person’s consciousness. The root
of this difficulty, many times, is the fact that this mythology has been
imparted by respected and beloved elders. Further, this mythology is generally
learned when the brain is at or near its peak ability to learn. Mythology is
also tenacious because of its strong emotional components, especially ones
which exalt the group of which a child is a part. Cognitive dissonance can
occur when cherished mythology is exposed to empirically-based scrutiny, and
the mythology’s contradictions, illogical aspects, and general explanatory flaws are exposed.
The questions of what the world
is, how it came to be, and how humans came to be form the core of a human’s mental
picture of himself in relation to the Universe, and his relationship to a
hypothesized Divine Creator (or creative force) who is ultimately believed to
be responsible for bringing that Universe, and by extension the human himself,
into existence. The answers embraced by a human to this set of questions tell
us, in many ways, a person’s opinion of herself and the others with whom she
lives. Many humans prefer answers to these questions that tend to reaffirm their
sense of being important in the scheme of things. It is this comforting belief
in human centrality that is most brutally challenged by the facts of our utter
spatial and temporal insignificance.
III.
When a human asks, What is my place in the world?, he or
she is quite possibly asking one of several things, or perhaps several things
in combination. The person may be asking, “What is my rank or social standing
compared to others?” This is a question of great importance, especially if a
human comes to believe that his or her rank or social standing is unchangeable. A person born into a “low status” family may
come to develop a fatalistic view of human life and human opportunity, seeing himself
as doomed to a life of menial labor and hardship. A person born into a “high
status” family may come to develop a sense of entitlement and a feeling of
superiority over those who are “lesser” than she. In a sense, when we ask about
our social rank we are asking, “How important and powerful am I compared to
other people?” (In societies with some degree of social mobility, the desire of
many to be more important and more powerful can have major consequences.) What is my place in the world, therefore, is
in one way an inquiry into the possibilities of one’s life
Another answer to What is my place in the world ? can be a
human’s belief about what he or she should do for a living or contribute
generally to society. In other words, it’s really the question, “What should I
do?” Some people come to see themselves as possessors of greatness, those
tagged by “Fate” to do memorable things and accumulate great wealth. For
others, “What should I do” is a question they never really answer completely,
drifting through the years with no definite course. And for most, “What should I do” is answered
by accepting the advice, norms, training, education, and sometimes compulsion
offered or imposed by others. Many people are never given any choice at all,
and do only that which others choose for them.
Finally, What is my place in the world? can be a more abstract question
related to other existential questions about the meanings of life and
existence. A person may also be asking, “Where do I fit in the history of the
world? How did I come to be in this situation at this place and time?” The
answers a person gives to these variations of the basic question are heavily
dependent on his or her level of learning and the cultural narratives he or she
has been raised with.
How should I live my life? involves not just questions of social
standing, but also an individual’s value system and personal philosophy. The
most fundamental answer is, “through right living”, but the definition of right
living can vary greatly from person to person. Is right living the steady and
monomaniacal accumulation of power over others, the constant seeking of
advantage, and the immediate gratification of all desires, regardless of the
consequences to others? Right living to other people means a code of behavior
to be followed, a disciplined way life, one replete with rules of conduct
toward others, a life of duties and obligations. To others right living implies
an effort to experience all that can be experienced while respecting the rights
of others to engage in the same pursuit. There are myriad ways right living can
be understood, therefore. Moreover, the definitions of right living may not
have clear-cut boundaries, can shift dramatically, and can be improvised
throughout a person’s life in the absence of an elaborately thought-out value
system. In many ways, human history has been affected by the clash of answers
to the question, “How should I live?” Many are not content to decide this for
themselves—they seek to impose their answers on others out of the conviction
that they, and they alone, know the proper course.
IV.
In the face of our isolation within the physical Universe, we
take comfort, perhaps, in the idea that we on this tiny planet at least have
each other. But as we struggle to make ourselves understood, as we wrestle with
our own natures, and as we struggle to understand others, we may find ourselves
increasingly unsure of the degree to which we actually do have each other. We therefore
ask the following urgent questions: Can I
know myself? Can I know others? Can others know me? The answers are ones we
usually don’t want to accept.
It takes many years for the
typical human to understand, both emotionally and intellectually, that he or
she sees the world in a way unlike that of any other human. When we are
children, we simply assume, I believe, that everyone sees what we see and feels
what we feel. (It could be said that when we are very young children we are so
absorbed in our own reaction to the world that we simply don’t care what anyone
else feels.) The different reactions of
people to the events of life are puzzling when we are young, even disturbing to
us. How can you feel that way? How
can you not agree with me?
But as we get older, we usually
find the nature of our interactions growing more complex. More and more subtle misunderstandings
arise. Other people often confuse us or anger us with their seemingly
inexplicable behaviors. A conclusion usually becomes more and more inescapable
to us: no one can possibly know the interior mental world of another human
being, and, by inference, no other human can really know ours. Of course, from
our youngest moments, most of us have been spoken to and immersed in the ocean
of a particular language. We have been taught to communicate with others using
this medium in the hope that we could convey our internal experience to others.
But the inadequacies of language—its ambiguity, its imprecision, its frequently
abstract nature, its infinite shades of meaning—impede our ability to convey
meaning to each other. Gradually, if we force ourselves to look at it honestly,
we come to realize that no one will ever truly understand 100% of what we mean.
We come to realize that even we don’t
always know what we mean, as we so often try to find words for feelings that no
words can express. This realization manifests itself sometimes as resentment,
sometimes as sorrow, sometimes as amused resignation, sometimes as a sort of
cosmic indifference. In many of us, it creates a sense of existential loneliness, and an unbridgeable
isolation from other people. And there is more.
When we are in quiet moments, we
often cannot get a handle on what we are experiencing at the eternal present.
When we fall into the infinity of mirrors that is the attempt by the brain to
understand the brain, it often produces a sense of indescribable mystification.
We are reduced to thinking, “What is all this? What is experience itself?” Our
brains’ inherent inability to grasp the whole reality that surrounds us strikes
us at these moments, even if we don’t put the sense of how strange we feel into any words. We are simply
swallowed up by our own minds, which are the product of a lifetime of
sensations and interactions that have had effects on us that are simply too
complicated for us to grasp. Not only are our reactions to experience too
complex to sort out, these reactions are based on information about ourselves that
oftentimes we just don’t have any more. We often don’t have any idea of what
the root of a specific emotional response actually is. We have lost the thread
of our lives, and it cannot be located again.
It is at these moments that an
even darker realization occurs to us: since we can not convey total, unfiltered
meaning to each other, and since we cannot account for all the many conflicting
and competing emotions within us, we not only will never understand others, we
will never
really understand ourselves. If we dwell on this, the absurdity of the
situation in which we find ourselves crashes down on us. We will never know
others; others will never know us; we will never know ourselves. And
yet, here we all are, thrown together, having to live with each other and
interact with each other. It is as if the entire human population is a
set of inmates, each one a prisoner in his or her own skull, trying to grasp
enough of the world to survive in it (or, hopefully, prosper), and trying to
communicate with the other prisoners trapped inside of their skulls. It is in
communication that our only hope of lessening our sense of isolation, and hence
our existential loneliness, lies.
Communication is the basis of
human interaction and in a very real sense, of human survival. Humans must convey part of their internal
experience to others, right from the start of life, and must in turn attempt to
apprehend part of the internal experience of others. But as I said above, such
communication will always be approximate. (The more abstract and less concrete
the concepts used in communication, the more approximate this communication
will be.) I will examine the significant impediments to communication in more
detail elsewhere. (See The Nature and
Continuing Evolution of Language.)
Our only hope of understanding
anything about each other is in the possession of common ground. If I refer to something as being red, only your
visual experience of a red object will suffice for you to grasp my meaning. (The
mathematical formulae describing red as a wavelength will not suffice if you
have never seen a red object.) If I tell you something is hot, only your
tactile experience of a hot object will stir any degree of understanding in
you. (And your associations with the words red
and hot may be very, very different
from mine.) At a minimum, we need some sort of linguistic and/or gestural
common ground to grasp part of each other’s meaning. We need a store of common
experience and common points of reference, a certain amount of shared
information and shared skills (which is why education of some form is
indispensable to people). But we will have to accept the fact that since it is
logically impossible to be another person, and to have the whole set of that
person’s knowledge, experience, emotional state, and state of consciousness at
our disposal at a given moment of communication, we will never entirely tear
down the walls of isolation. We will perceive reality in a way which may be
very similar to others, but it can never, by definition, be exactly the perception
of any other person. (The upshot of all this is if I’m right, I can’t be 100%
certain why I feel the need to express this to you. And you can’t be 100%
certain you know what I mean.)
Are the ambiguous nature of
communication, our resulting sense of existential loneliness, and the unanswered
mysteries of our own personalities the real origins of our quest for certainty?
Are they the sources of our desire to believe that we understand, and the illusion that we are understood? Do the huge questions most of us feel are so important
about God, death, suffering, the meaning of existence, the nature of truth, and
others like them have their root in our sense of isolation? Does this feeling
of being isolated engender in us the desire, ultimately, to be connected with a
reality where the self can be subsumed into a greater and more significant
whole and language has a single, definite meaning? Can it even give us the
desire to live in a reality where words
no longer matter?
V.
Many people find out about human
cruelty and perversity far too early in life, and any hope these people have of
being able to count on and be reassured by the behavior of others is critically
damaged, often irreparably so, by trauma suffered in childhood. Most others are
more fortunate, but sooner or later, everyone is exposed to the sins and
weaknesses that our complex psychologies give rise to: corruption, lies,
betrayal, and injuries in endless variety. Since humans must be able to predict
and anticipate the behavior of others for their own safety (and indeed this is
so crucial that some researchers believe consciousness itself arose out of this
need), the question, Who can I trust, and
to what degree? is of the utmost importance. It’s worth looking at what we
mean by the word “trust”. (See also The
Sinews of Trust in Section VII for a fuller discussion.)
Trust can be thought of as the
willingness to let our defenses down—to be vulnerable, either physically or
emotionally, or both—with another human or group of humans. This willingness to
be vulnerable is based on an assessment of the predictability of other people’s behavior. If, in a particular
setting, we feel that those who are present with us mean us no harm (at
minimum), are positively inclined toward us (in a middle case), or would
sacrifice important things to defend us (the maximum case), there is a feeling
of trust. If I know that you are not going to try to hurt me, and will in fact
be my ally, I can set aside my internal readiness to fight or flee, and relax
emotionally.
There are, obviously degrees of
trust between people, ranging from trust in a person in a limited setting for a
limited duration all the way to people one can trust with one’s life. Knowing
the difference between those we can trust with small things and those we can
trust with the ultimate things is of obvious evolutionary importance. It is
trust of an unspoken kind that regulates much of ordinary human behavior, and
in situations where trust between people is low or completely absent, anarchy
and “the war of all against all” tends to be the rule.
Is betrayal so sharply felt
because the need for trust is so deeply embedded in our brains? There seems to
be something fundamental about
betrayal that causes humans to respond to it with deep anger and hurt. Is this
an indication of how ancient the need for trust really is?
We see the suffering of others;
we experience suffering, perhaps very severe, ourselves. We can imagine injury
and pain from experience, and if we are rational (and not under the stress of
life-or-death circumstances) we seek to avoid them at all costs. We especially
seek to protect our children from them, very often at the price of our own
well-being. We hear of or even witness horrors; dark fears insinuate themselves
into our thinking, and one of the most elemental of all questions demands our
attention: How can I protect myself and
my loved ones from the world? I say “the world” in this formulation because
many of our fears are centered in the generalized “others” who share the world
with us, the strangers who may do us harm. (The issue of trust is at play here,
of course.) We seek to give ourselves and those we love safe places in which to
live, and we seek further to control as many of the potentially dangerous
variables in our environment as we can. The inability to control these
variables can lead to a feeling of helplessness, rage, frustration, despair,
and chronic fear. People trapped in war zones or in generally lawless areas
know the terrible urgency of finding safety, in many ways the prime objective
of a living thing. The fear, caution, preparation, and alertness demanded by
the need to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe has been one of the chief
factors driving human history. Magnified over an entire population, the need to
keep ourselves and our loved ones safe is at the heart of our defense efforts
(although the individual soldier may be fighting under compulsion).
The issue of protecting one’s
self and one’s loved ones is so significant that it is usually the priority
consideration in a person’s life. The quest for security and the need to
prepare for dangers which may emerge either from malicious strangers or unpredictable
nature can lead to the sacrifice of all other values. Conversely, the failure
to protect one’s loved ones (or the perceived failure) can lead a human down
the most grievous abysses of despair. The protection of one’s kin, in
particular, may have extremely ancient evolutionary roots; only the survival of
the precious genes guarantees continuation of our line. The anguish we feel
when those we love have been harmed may in part be rooted in this. Add in the
depths of emotional attachment that people usually feel for those related to
them, and the suffering of our loved ones becomes utterly intolerable, a fate
to be avoided at any cost, including
the abandonment of even the most deeply held moral beliefs. How can I protect myself and my loved ones
from the world? For most people, the answer is, “Any way I have to.”
Survival may be a tremendous
achievement for many people, and the minimal protection of themselves and their
loved ones a true victory, given the often harsh realities of the world. But
most people, at least in the more economically advanced areas of the Earth,
seek something more once the basic minimums of life have been secured.
Specifically, most people want to know the purpose of the human enterprise
itself. They want to know, “Is there a
larger purpose to life than mere survival, and if so, what is it?” This
question is related to “How should I live
my life?” but it is not identical to it. It contains the unspoken question,
“Why do we live?” It also encompasses
more than just one’s self, for it implies that humans as a group have some sort
of mission to fulfill, and that this mission is both significant and
discoverable. The answers people give to this question very often reveal deeply
held personal beliefs or prejudices. A person might say that the purpose of
life is to prepare for the establishment of the Kingdom of God, or that the
purpose of life is to prepare for Eternity, or the purpose of life is to
eradicate human suffering, or the purpose of life is to grab everything for
yourself that you can before you die or the purpose of life is to have children
and grandchildren and pass one’s family name down. Others might say in response
to this question, “Purpose? There is no such thing. We just live and do the
best we can, and then we die.” That statement very often also reveals deeply
held beliefs, although most people might not readily perceive this. However it
is answered, one thing is consistent: if a purpose is believed to exist, it is
considered the main overall reason a person lives his or her life. It is the
ultimate, overriding goal. It is, in essence, the root of a personal
philosophy.
VI.
At a young age, most people begin
to be given what will turn out to be a long series of instructions on what to
do and what not to do. They will have these rules impressed into them in any
number of ways, many of them physically hurtful ones. Also at a young age
people will begin to glean lessons from the culture with which they are
surrounded about what constitutes “right conduct”. As a person grows older, he or she will
generally begin making judgments about the behavior of others, perhaps
comparing it to the standards of behavior which they have absorbed (in their
uniquely individual way) from their kinship group, neighbors, and community.
Whether they realize it or not, when they do this, most people are applying a
set of standards that govern a general system by which the behavior of others
is regulated (and by which their own behavior is in turn regulated). They are
forming answers to the question, “What is
right and what is wrong?”
This question is, naturally, at
the very heart of what humans call their moral or ethical systems, and it has
been answered in any number of ways. Wrong conduct, being abnormal and
disruptive, seems to be identified more readily than right conduct, which tends
to become part of the human mental background, part of the definition of “normality”.
Among the definitions of wrong conduct humans have given over the centuries,
the following tend to be the most prominent:
· Whatever violates the sacred teachings of the
religion which is dominant in our culture.
· Whatever disrupts the orderly conduct of
business and social relationships in our society.
· Whatever undermines the unity of our people.
· Whatever shows disloyalty to the rulers of our
society.
· Whatever violates the prerogatives of parents
over their children.
· Whatever brings dishonor to and condemnation of a
family.
· Whatever violates the person or property of a
human being who has committed no offense against anyone.
· Whatever undermines the trust people in our
society have to have in order to live with each other.
· Whatever is, in general, contrary to the laws,
norms, and traditions of our people.
· Whatever actions those in power take that are
corrupt or unjust.
· Any combination of any of the above with varying
degrees of emphasis on the individual guidelines.
Notice that only two or three of
these statements could in any way be interpreted as emphasizing the primacy of
the individual or the rights of a human against the power of those who govern
him. In fact, throughout human history, questions of right and wrong have
seldom been left to individual judgment, nor have they focused primarily on the
rights of the person. Wrong conduct has generally been defined as conduct which
undermines the collective well-being
of a society, conduct which attacks the institutions on which the society is
based. (Right conduct, naturally, is generally considered the exact inverse of
each of the above statements.) Virtually every human who has ever lived, until
the last few hundred years, has lived under definitions of right or wrong
behavior similar to this. Respect for the individual’s privacy and personal
conduct has, in the larger context, been an aberration in human history, not
the norm.
But humans face moral and ethical
dilemmas of a smaller scale every day, ones for which guidelines are not always
clear. How should I treat those whom I don’t know? How friendly or unfriendly
should I be to those I do know? Should I always be bluntly honest, or should I
value tact above all? Should I help people I don’t know, or ignore all but the
needs of my own family? Can I rightfully take advantage of the ignorance or
gullibility of other people? It is this mass of billions of small moral
decisions that often steers the day-to-day course of our world more than the
broader and more formalized rules that govern societies.
Questions of right and wrong,
can, of course, be given more ominous interpretations. What is right and what
is wrong? Some answers are:
- Whatever benefits me is right; whatever doesn’t
benefit me is wrong.
- Whatever promotes the power of my group is right;
whatever lessens it is wrong.
- Whatever hurts the people I hate is right; whatever
doesn’t hurt the people I hate is wrong.
The terrible simplicity of such
answers has very often been the basis for the most obscene crimes and
atrocities in human history. And, unfortunately, those who reduce all of life
to a simple question of whether they’re getting their way or not prevail more
than we would like to admit.
We are confronted on a daily
basis with assertions of fact, statements which claim to be “true” in the sense
that they are, presumably, empirically demonstrable. We are presented with
claims of evidence, claims that such-and-such an event occurred in real time at
a real place. We have to make decisions about what we believe to be truly real. We are faced with the existential
question, therefore, “What is true and
what is false?” Upon this question rest whole belief systems and
ideologies, as well as the related issues of whether we can even reliably
ascertain answers to such a question. We are forced to define what we mean by
“true” and “false”. How have people gone about doing so?
Throughout human existence,
people have generally thought that whatever they perceived with their own
senses was true. “I saw it with my own eyes” is considered conclusive proof to
most of us. As far as the truth of larger things is concerned, there have been
other methods employed. In most societies of the past, for example, the test of
whether something was true or not was simple: do those with the ability to
contact the supernatural plane of existence say that it is? If those believed
to have this power passed a judgment on such a question, it was generally
considered authoritative. There are gods, there is a soul, there are gods that
weigh the soul in the balance after death, there is a sacred river we cross
only in death, there are sacrifices which must be made to placate the gods,
things can come alive again after dying, and all manner of such beliefs have
been accepted as true because those with specialized knowledge of the
metaphysical said so. Until a few hundred years ago this was considered the most
powerful standard of truth in the vast majority of human societies.
But there have been, for many
centuries, those for whom religious authority was insufficient. Some 2,500
years ago, on the eastern shore of the
And then, there is the question
that has, perhaps, caused more anguish and despair than any other: Why is there suffering? Often it is in
our darkest and lowest times that we tend to ask this, when the issue of
suffering is confronting us in the most direct and harrowing way possible.
In the chapter entitled,
“Rebellion” in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s immortal The Brothers Karamazov, one of the brothers, Ivan, a depressed
intellectual, is discussing with his brother Alyosha, a gentle, Christ-like
Russian Orthodox monk, the question of why God allows suffering. In particular,
Ivan is tormented by the issue of the suffering of children, and he inundates
his brother with horrible details of atrocities and abuses committed against
children, which he has collected in the form of newspaper clippings and other
documentation. One of the cases of abuse Ivan shares with Alyosha is a
particularly hideous one involving the barbaric treatment of a five year old
girl by her own parents. Ivan explains that the little girl, while locked in a
stinking, freezing outhouse in the winter, was heard praying to God, asking Him
what she had done to make her parents punish her so terribly. Then he adds:
“Can you understand why a little creature, who can’t even understand what’s done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to protect her? Do you understand that, Alyosha, you pious and humble novice? Do you understand why this infamy must be and is permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child’s prayer to ‘dear, kind God!’ I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But those little ones!...I am making you suffer, Alyosha. I’ll stop if you like.”
Ivan speaks for many of us—and so
does Alyosha. (It is a measure of Dostoyevsky’s intellectual integrity, by the
way, that he, a Christian, was willing to throw the strongest and most
emotionally wrenching case at his own belief system.) Almost all of us wonder
why those who have done nothing wrong so often suffer so deeply and horribly.
It seems to offend some very deeply embedded notion of fairness in us. It
literally doesn’t make sense in our way of thinking. There is no justice in it. There is no proportion. The effect seems utterly
disconnected to the cause. And when the victims of suffering are helpless,
innocent children, our minds can come close to the breaking point if we dwell
on it too long. Our natural sense of empathy for children, and our
evolutionarily-conditioned protective instincts, are outraged by the pain and
fear of “those little ones”. More broadly, we often wonder how a just and
righteous God can look on such things, apparently, and do nothing. It is the
ultimate problem for many religious believers, as they see not just children
but all kinds of unoffending humans going through unspeakable tortures and
devastating sickness. As one grows older, and there continues to be no
apparent, predictable pattern that this suffering follows, our faith can be
tested to its limits. Paradoxically, it is just such testing that can cause
many to cling to their faith even more fervently: it is their last defense
against the idea of a world of random, senseless, chaotic horror. Such people must believe that God or the Universe or
the Supreme Intelligence has its reasons, and that someday the believers will
understand those reasons. No other psychological position is tolerable for
them.
The issue of suffering can be
thought of as part of a broader question, and can indeed cause it to be asked: Why do evil and injustice exist? So
often in history the brutal, the merciless, the cruel, and the morally
indifferent have triumphed. So often the most terrible humans have lived to a
ripe old age and died peacefully in their sleep while their countless victims had
met their ends writhing in agony. So often the lawless and violent seem to
prosper in life today, and barbarism is the norm in many, many places. (This
may be part of the reason so many people want to believe in hell; they need to
believe that the evil will be punished somehow,
even if they escape the judgment of this world.) If God (or the Universe, or
the Supreme Intelligence) is really the author of everything, is it the author
of evil as well? Why does a purportedly all-powerful being even permit such a
thing to exist? There is, in fact, an entire branch of theology devoted to this
question, called theodicy. Religious thinkers have wrestled for centuries with
the problem of evil. The best they have been able to do is to argue that God is
so powerful that He or It can wrest good even out of apparent evil, or to argue
that what seems evil to humans is not necessarily evil to a Being who has a
plan for the evolution of the whole Universe. To many humans, such explanations
are cold comfort, at best. Again, for their own mental well-being, they must
believe that what is apparently evil has some larger purpose, and that in the
end everything will make sense.
VII.
Two of the final existential
questions humans confront, in some form, are deeply intertwined: Is life worth living? and Is there such a thing as meaning, and if so,
is it discoverable? In what ways can these issues be approached?
At the beginning of The Myth of Sisyphus, in the section
entitled, “An Absurd Reasoning”, the existentialist writer and philosopher
Albert Camus startles us with his opening lines: “There is but one truly
serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or
is not worth living amounts to the fundamental question of philosophy.” (P. 3)
To Camus the dilemma a human faces is justifying his or her existence in a
Universe that is absurd, one apparently without purpose and one in which hope
is illusory. Camus asserts that belief in the transcendent, and thus the
hopeful, is an illogical leap of reasoning, a sort of intellectual desperation,
an attempt to hold off a conclusion that would render human life meaningless.
In reply to the hopes for the existence of the transcendent, Camus writes:
I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch, what resists me—that is what I understand. And these two certainties—my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle—I also know that I cannot reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my condition? (P. 38)
To Camus, the limitations
inherent in his human perspective preclude the possibility of ascertaining
meaning. And yet, this does not mean for Camus that suicide necessarily follows
as a rational course of action. On the contrary, humans must revolt against the
absurdity of life by confronting it, by living as fully as possible, accepting
the inevitability of one’s fate without being resigned to it. Camus believed
that humans can be “indomitable and passionate”, throwing themselves into life
totally. “The absurd man can only drain everything to the bitter end, and
deplete himself.” (P. 41) It is in this revolt, this refusal to stop engaging
the world, this refusal to be reconciled to it, that Camus found his purpose
for living.
Most people probably don’t
approach these questions from the standpoint that Camus did, but they encounter
them nonetheless. Is life worth living? Let’s pose two diametrically opposite
cases. If a human has those whom she loves, and who love her in return, is
emotionally invested in the wellbeing of her family and friends, has work that
is enjoyable and useful, has frequent periods of joy, and holds out hope that
reality will someday make sense to her, those reasons alone can be sufficient
for living. But if a human is in constant despair, without family or friends,
without joy, without meaningful work, without hope, and, most tragically, suffering
from intractable pain or illness, the continuation of life may not make sense
to him. Personal annihilation might appear to be the most rational choice in
his situation. But in real life, the choices aren’t usually as clear cut as
these examples might suggest. Humans may alternate between periods of
enthusiasm for, or at least tolerance of, life, and periods where they think,
“This just isn’t worth it.”. Virtually no one is entranced with life on a
constant basis, but most of us find the prospect of personal annihilation
unthinkable and troubling. Humans live somewhere in the gray, not easily
defined middle of life, muddling through, and continuing onward through inertia
and habit as much as conviction.
Is life worth living? To many
people, it is worth living because they are obliged to do so—they have
responsibilities, which in good conscience they cannot abandon. Is life worth
living? To some it is because they have personal challenges and goals with
which they are preoccupied, even obsessed. Is life worth living? To some, to
abandon their lives would be to do something they cannot do—quit in the face of
adversity and admit defeat. Is life worth living? To many of us, the answer is
simple—as long as we have and know love, it is, despite all hardships.
What do humans mean by their
search for “meaning”? Here I am not
talking about the interpretation of language, although meaning in language is
certainly important. Here, I mean a question which in many ways is a summation
of all the others. When we consider the meaning of existence, we are asking, What was all this for? If reality is the
result of the will of a transcendent being, what was that will? Why does existence exist? Is there a logical reason
for it, and is it aiming at some final condition, some ultimate state that must
necessarily follow from its unfolding? Was there a reason we had to go through
all the frequent misery that we had to endure? Most of us hope that there is
some reason for all of our adversity and for existence itself. We want the
story to have a satisfying conclusion, one that will resolve all our doubts and
answer all of our questions.
Some have come to the conclusion
that physical reality is the result of wholly natural processes, and if there
is a meaning to all of this, it is far beyond our ability to discern it. To the
question, is there such a thing as meaning, they might say no, and in fact they
might go so far as to say that even the act of posing such a question is
nonsensical. Others might reply that they don’t know what the ultimate
“meaning” of the Universe’s existence is. They might add that the only real
meaning they can know is that which they make for themselves, and that in the
absence of certain knowledge, this is the best they can hope for. And we must
ask, honestly: in a Universe in which we are so obviously insignificant, can
any meaning ever be ascertained at all?
At last, the question of life’s
meaning is, for most people, intimately connected with their attitudes toward
death and what might come after it. The question What happens when people die? is of tremendous interest to most of
us, even if the contemplation of our own demise is unsettling. The
inevitability and seeming finality of death have been the subject of more
speculation and discussion than perhaps any other existential question humans
face. Death is a major concern of most of our religions, a major theme in our
art and literature, a major subject for our philosophers, and a significant
topic in the sciences. Few subjects are studied by such a breadth of
disciplines. And few subjects compel our attention so strongly. It appears that
the majority of the human race believes that death is not the end of the
individual ego’s existence. Most humans believe in some sort of afterlife where
the personality continues, or that a process of rebirth or transmigration takes
place, where some essential part of the human is preserved to exist in
different forms. Of course, every human who believes in these possibilities has
his or her own vision of what this afterlife or rebirth might be like, and many
believers have, throughout their lives, varying degrees of certitude about
post-death survival.
For many humans, the idea that
there might be no afterlife is intolerable. Why? First, because the idea of our
non-existence terrifies many of us. After years of being, in effect, our own
little Universes, it is inconceivable for many of us to imagine these Universes
disintegrating into nothingness. The feeling might be described as I AM;
how could I not be? For other humans, if there is no hope of an afterlife, there
is no hope, period. Life would be a meaningless, futile act of mere survival.
If there were no afterlife, it would mean that all their loved ones who had
died would be gone forever. There would be no joyous reunions, no embracing of
lost parents or lost children, no prospect of being reunited with those whose
passing was made less painful only by the prospect that the separation would
not be permanent. Most people simply cannot face this level of hopelessness. For
others, the idea of no afterlife is intolerable because it would mean,
ultimately, that there is no justice
in the Universe. It would mean that the virtuous are unrewarded; that those who
have undergone terrible suffering will not find the compensation of eternal
comfort and mercy; and that evil humans who have not been punished in life get
off the hook, so to speak. Many people simply cannot believe in such injustice. And for some, no afterlife means
that there is no resolution to the personal issues and problems with which they
may have struggled all of their lives, and no answers to questions that have disturbed
them almost as long. Many people cannot abide such a lack of resolution. For a
lot of humans, a combination of these beliefs is at work. There are those who
also might look forward to the afterlife as a vindication of their faith and
the prospect of being united with the One, the Sacred, the Almighty, the Divine.
Little wonder so many humans have, still do, and always will believe that death
is not the end. They might even believe
because they embrace a version of Pascal’s Wager: If they believe in an
afterlife, and none exists, they won’t be aware of it, and will be none the
worse off. If they don’t believe in one, and one exists, then the consequences
of their disbelief might be grim indeed.
For those who do not believe in
an afterlife, on the other hand, it can stir in them the urge to live as
intensely as they can within the time they have. If our time truly is finite,
then what is aspired to must be achieved in the here and now. There will be no
second chance, in this perspective. Experience must be seized; life must be
encountered. Conversely, some who have no faith in an afterlife might be
morose, convinced that the only true proposition is, “Life is hard and then you
die.” To such people, life might not seem only meaningless—it might seem not
even worth the effort.
VIII.
We do not encounter these
existential questions in nice, orderly sequence, nor do we encounter them in
neat, easily discernable, clearly marked situations. We encounter them in the
flesh and blood world of everyday life in ways that are often muddled and
filled with contradictions. We might never ask ourselves any of these questions
in straightforward language, even if we sense their presence; they may always
simply be undefined feelings deep within us, never examined in any serious way.
And most disturbing of all, even if we do confront them directly, we may never
find answers that satisfy us. The existential questions of life can pose
challenges that perhaps we are not equal to. If we cannot be certain about why
humans exist, what is right and what is wrong, or whether death is the end or
not, we might be filled with unease and a sense of incompleteness, as if
important business had been left undone. The way a human deals with the
questions of existence tells us important things about them. Those who never think
about these issues are personifying Plato’s famous quote: “The unexamined life
is not worth living”. Those who believe they have all the answers to them may
actually be arrogant and self-deceived. And those who seek answers in an
open-minded way, modestly, and with a sense of humility, may be better
positioned in life than most people.
IX.
We were summoned into the world
through an act that was not willed by us. As infants, we exist and perceive but
we do not understand. We find
ourselves thrown into a family (or some other group of caregivers). We find
ourselves immersed in a particular way of life, which we come to assume is
normal. We float in the river of time and we see the days pass in succession,
not realizing what time itself is. We find ourselves in a particular historical
era, although we are utterly unaware of this for many years. We are selves,
being shaped by impulses, experiences, actions, reactions, personalities, and
circumstances the nature of which we do not comprehend, but we cannot yet step
outside of these selves to examine all of this. We interact with others, and we
gravitate back and forth between the exterior world of this interaction and the
interior world of our emotions, memories, impressions, and hypotheses about
this interaction, the inner world of our emerging consciousness, the place in
our brains where we process and
absorb experience. This is our common inheritance as people, the reality each
of us faces.
As we grow, and more and more see
ourselves (usually) as a part of something larger than just us, we come to
realize that the world is huge, life is complicated, that we don’t always
understand what happens to us, other people can be challenging or frightening
to deal with, and that much of existence just seems to be downright mysterious.
Every human who has ever lived has, in my view, lived a version of this same
story. Every human has found himself or herself in a world that was in many
ways beyond their comprehension, but in which they were nonetheless forced to
act and gather information.
Now let us remind ourselves that
in addition to these personal challenges, that the following things appear to
be true:
--Humans live in a frame of
reference that they cannot escape and which prevents them from touching the
Ultimately Real.
--Humans find themselves living
in a Universe in which they are absurdly insignificant both spatially and
temporally.
--Humans find themselves
confronted by questions that they cannot always answer, or even formulate
clearly, but which seem to be of the utmost significance, and which appear many
times to have no certain answers at all. They are forced to seek answers to
these questions with limited knowledge and restricted understanding—and they
will never have anything else.
Moreover, the only tenuous links
these humans have to the world outside of their own heads are forms of communication
which by their very nature are imprecise and approximate. Humans are trapped in
a reality in which total mutual understanding is impossible, one in which their
motives are often obscure or completely hidden even to themselves.
It is these frequently confused,
physically vulnerable, often talented, mentally isolated, unpredictable, surprisingly
resilient, incredibly adaptable, virtually incomprehensible beings who have
made and experienced the history of the world ever since the line between
really bright ape and really limited human was crossed in some forever-lost
moment of the past. We are going to look for the reasons why these beings want answers to questions that are often
unanswerable, and why they have evolved to want and need answers to the
particular questions they do. We will seek to understand (in part) the reality
in which we find ourselves, and how that reality came to be. It is to the
search for answers to these questions that we will now turn, even as we realize
that after all of our searching and all of our examination, that the answers
may still elude us, as a butterfly gently hovers beyond the grasp of a
fascinated two year-old.